Burial Grounds
by theramblingfangirl
Summary: Two different Potts women in two different times. Both visting very different burial grounds on very different planets for very different reasons.


**Burial grounds**

 _Junior Potts_

 _Earth_

"Hello, mum..." Bill trailed off, looking around the place. "We always talk in my place you know, so I thought I should...visit yours..."

Bill wasn't sure she wanted to be here. It wasn't necessarily cold, but it wasn't warm either, it was...

Nothing. 

Just like there was nothing for her to say here.

It was easy, at home to talk to her. People would say she was mad if she told them she talked to her mum, but it was true. She could hear her too, some times. Snippets of her voice, sometimes talking, about travellers and how you get always smell them and all sorts of weird things. Sometimes she was telling her how everything would be alright.

And sometimes she was singing a little tune, of which Bill could never quite catch the lyrics.

And it always felt so real...like a whisper from inside her own brain, if that made any sense...

But it was hard here, hard to talk to her when faced with the blunt reality of it all.

That her mother had been gone for years now and this was her burial grounds.

"I've brought you flowers, I always liked yellow so I thought...you know...maybe you would too. Spruce the place up a bit, I mean I can't imagine you'd be a fan of all the grey." She stepped forward, and placed the flowers on the casket in the middle of the casket the rims adorned in some kind of circular text, taking centre-place in the mausoleum.

"But I don't really know that, do I? I mean, I imagine you would, people say I'm like you but...I don't even know what you look like."

A mausoleum.

For a woman with no known family except a baby who lived on her own in a flat, this was impressive. There was no way she could have paid for all of this herself either, it must have been some sort of anonymous benefactor.

Ever since the first time Bill had visited, she'd always wondered who.

"So, the Doctor, I need to tell you about him! Strange name for a lecturer and I'm technically not supposed to actually attend his lectures, what, being a dinner lady and not a student but it's just so bizarre! Like an eccentric grandfather! He goes off in these tangents and you never know what he's going to teach next! Keeps you right on your toes!"

Silence again. As Bill shifted and pulled her jacket together. She should probably be getting going soon, there was a party downtown and this cute girl had invited her.

She turned around. She should go.

 _Keep walking don't stop keep looking ahead_

But...

"I think you would have liked him too mum."

 _Senior "Potts"_

 _Gallifrey_

She would need to be gone soon.

Rassilon was angry, in fact angry would be a huge understatement in regards to what Rassilon was doing right now.

The War Council had helped the Doctor, a man who'd played a role in his forced regeneration and had sabotaged his plan for ascension, to save Gallifrey.

A good leader, a sane leader, would be thankful, thankful to the Doctor and the Council for their role in their people being saved and a war that had stretched throughout all of time being put to a definite end.

Rassilon was out for blood and had detained several of the Doctor's "associates" and "collaborators" already, doing as much as he could right under the occupied General's nose.

And she was no fool. She knew she was going to be next. Too late in the war, even before the decision the council had made on the final day, had she continued to be vocal within the council in her support for the Doctor's actions.

Now, with the war over and her continued use expired, Rassilon would not forgive her for that.

And they would not spare her child either. She knew that despite the robes her stomach would soon visibly swell, could even sense the babe developing inside of her by now and knew it would be born in a cell should she stay any longer. Were it to be allowed to be born at all due to the supposed "sins" of it's mother.

It would be a lie to say that she had no regrets in her lifetime, her entire tenure on the War Council alone had been comprised of harsh compromises and doing what must be done, but leaving this forsaken, burned planet was not one of them.

Which was why she was trying to find the entrance to an Ancient Gallifreyan catacomb.

Nobody had been to this particular burial ground in millennia, nobody had known where it was, it having taken the calling in of many a favour and reading of many a scripture for her to even narrow down it's location.

And even if the location had been known, entrance here was decreed forbidden.

But she was already desperate and on the wrong side of the law. So all that meant to her was how the TARDIS said to be inside would surely be here available for use.

It was just a matter of finding it first.

Before any guards found her

 _Tap tap tap tap tap *click*_

At last one of the tiles gave way, and the wall slid open to reveal the catacombs

She stepped in cautiously, knowing full-well there would be traps here.

But all she could see was seemingly endless wires stretching on ahead. She shuddered. While in perhaps another planet a crypt would have been lined with bones, on Gallifrey it was wires. But in both cases they were all that was left of the occupants of the crypts.

Those wires were part of a rudimentary Matrix, and she wondered how aware those in it would be of her presence, and if their reaction would be malevolent.

So for that reason, when she took her first steady strides in she stayed far away from the walls lest the dead become active and strangle her with the thin metal cords that contained them.

 _Keep walking don't stop keep looking ahead keep walking don't stop keep looking ahead_

She changed over and over to herself, hearts pounding as she thought she heard the sound of metal scraping, trailing behind. More and more scraping getting closer and closer and...

 _Keep walking don't stop keep looking ahead keep walking don't-_ "AAAAH!"

She barely had time to shield her belly from the worst of the impact as she smacked done to the hard stone floor, feet yanked out from under her.

By the dead. Wires were now snaking up her legs dragging her back, constricting, _tightening_ and it was all she could to avoid biting off her own tongue at the burning, slicing pain off it was to scream.

She frantically tried to shake loose and when that failed, turned to try seize the fail safe she had hidden in her clothing before the wires worked their way up to her arms and left her entirely helpless.

They were at her waist now, digging in and as she primed the fail safe she could only pray that the babe had inherited Gallifreyan resilience.

This was going to hurt and who knows what side effects it may have done the line but it would buy them a chance to not die today!

So she activated it.

The wires recoiled back, hissing and steering away, clearly valuing self-preservation over their continued attack.

And with that, the released Time Lord forced herself back up, teeth gnashing together, fighting the urge to vomit and with her legs persisting in their attempts to buckle as she persisted in continuing.

 _Keep walking don't stop keep looking ahead keep walking don't stop keep looking ahead_

It was then that the floor disappeared once again, the catacomb's own fail safe trap having apparently been activated.

Her arms flailed out madly trying to grip something as she plummeted down and perhaps through sheer luck one of her hands hooked onto something and her fall was abruptly halted. She could not see what she was grabbing, nor how far up or down she was. Everything was in complete darkness.

"Don't worry baby, mum will get us out of this somehow. I always do!" She murmured, mind racing as she tried think of a way out of this.

She was hanging into thin air, but when she swung forwards a bit and kicked her legs out don't they smacked something solid. A wall perhaps. If she was willing to take a chance she could perhaps shimmy down-

"Here we go." She muttered and with that-

* _whumph_ *

The wall was slimy and sticky against her hands and she was certain that she did not want to know whatever that substance was.

But they had made it.

There was no way to know how much time had passed here, whether hours or even days of awkward shimmies, shuffling, sliding and more than one incidence of having to fend off some snarling beast in the dark, but eventually as her hands screamed and she could barely bring herself to hold on any longer, there was light, actual light and the bottom became visible down bellow.

"It's the TARDIS! It's a TARDIS baby we've found it!" Her head tilted back and she let out a genuine laugh of utter relief. This must be the key shrine of the catacomb! With the TARDIS standing watch over the tribute to it's fallen pilots, each represented by a golden statue.

That relief nearly lead to numerous accidents as she sped down faster than ever, the very fact that they were now so close filling her with renewed vigour.

And then her feet touched the floor.

And with that her legs gave way at long last, and she didn't know whether it was a laugh or a sob she let out as she sank to the floor. She would have to move again in a moment, she could here the * _click click click_ *-ing of another trap activating but for now she just took in the sight of the TARDIS in front of her.

It was an old model, one from a line that had long stopped being produced and had itself become decrepit. There was very little chance it would get them to Earth.

"But we don't need it to get us to Earth, do we baby? No, lesson number one little: when you're being hunted by Gallifrey, be resourceful. We just need to get off this planet and then if it fails you and me can find another ship."

* _clunk_ *

And with that she forced herself into once last sprint as one of the golden statues swung at her, the tip of its fingers just grazing off of the back of her neck as more and more of the monuments activated some even carrying weapons to swing, all forcing her to duck and weave as best she could in her current state.

They were presumably there to stop her from stealing whatever treasure this catacomb surely hid.

When she got in the TARDIS they would hopefully realise that, while perhaps still a Tomb Raider of sorts, she was not interested in what they were guarding.

And if not...well then hopefully as old a model as the TARDIS is, it's doors are strong enough to hold against them.

This was all presuming that it would allow her to enter in the first place.

And oh so thankfully it did.

But she would not rest yet, lest the worst case scenario with the monuments occur.

She forced herself over to the control panels and did her best to figure out how similar this model was to those she'd flown before.

And there it was, the beautiful sound of a machine travelling throughout time and space.

With that sound, the former member of the Gallifreyan War Council was able to fully relax for the first time in centuries.

"Lesson number two little one: avoid ancient catacombs."

A smile. Hope. Optimism. Such a wonderful thing to truly experience again.

"We'll have to find you an Earth name won't we? Anything Gallifreyan will stand out. But I'll find you a nice one. With meaning, to me, at least."

She closed her eyes, and let her mind prod the little growing presence inside of her, again smiling that despite all she'd had been through, it was still there. Still fighting.

They were going to grow up to be such a wonderful, strong person and she could not wait to see it.

"I think you'll like Earth. It's full of strong people too, just like you. Perhaps we'll even run into the Doctor. I think you would like him too."


End file.
